


Heart of Glass

by minkhollow



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe, Case Fic, Episode Related, F/M, Peteless!'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 20:32:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rebecca and Jack investigate a case in Green Bay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This came from me thinking through some of the implications of the Peteless!'verse presented in "The Greatest Gift," which got me to: Well, if MacPherson never debronzed HG and one of the keys to "Where and When" is that it was Myka _and Pete_ who did the time traveling anyway, then in that 'verse it didn't happen. That aside, I'd wondered how Rebecca and Jack having the chance to solve the Glass Girl case for themselves would have gone. Some things stayed from "Where and When"; some didn't.  
>  Many thanks, as ever, to Neb for the beta-read.  
> I am not Syfy; I'm just borrowing because I can't get enough of these two.

Rebecca smacks the alarm clock, but it keeps buzzing – and then, as she wakes up a bit more, she realizes it isn’t the alarm clock after all. She sighs, pulls back the covers, and starts trying to sort out what Jack did with the Farnsworth after they checked into the hotel last night.

It turns out to be under his hat, for some reason; it’s not as though they’d have left either one for housekeeping to find. Rebecca scrubs a hand across her face, then opens it; whoever’s calling at this hour is just going to have to deal with the fact that they woke her up. “What is it?”

“I need you in Calcutta,” Charlie says. “You’re off the Glass Girl case.”

That snaps Rebecca awake like nobody’s business. “Charlie! Have you lost your mind? We’re already here!”

“Gus is getting close to Man Ray’s camera. If another glass girl turns up, we’ll look into it.” Charlie raises his eyebrows, and Rebecca wonders – not for the first time – if the man ever sleeps. “Look, this comes directly from Mrs. Frederic, so if you really wanna piss her off and have her give you that stare, be my guest. The lady terrifies me.”

Rebecca sighs, and briefly considers pulling Jack into the conversation, but decides against it; he’s only just stirring, so he’d do more harm than good. “We have all the leg work in place to hopefully snag this thing today, whatever it is. Besides, by the time we got to Calcutta, Gus would probably have the matter in hand. Just give us one more day to find out what we can from the office and Raitt’s wife, and if we don’t find anything, then Calcutta.”

Charlie scowls, but he says, “Fine, but it’s on your head, if Mrs. Frederic asks.”

“I assumed it would be. When Phyllis gets in, could you have her pull everything she can find on Jonah Raitt, please?”

“It’ll be the highlight of my day.” Charlie ends the call; Rebecca rolls her eyes and puts the Farnsworth in her handbag, just as the alarm clock finally goes off. She decides to leave it for Jack to turn off, whenever he deigns to get out of bed, and heads for the bathroom.

She’s dressed and most of the way through applying her makeup when the alarm finally stops.

“Awww, Becks! Come on!”

Rebecca allows herself a smile, even if there’s only the mirror in here to see it. “It’s not my fault you didn’t get up to take the call, Jack. Incidentally, why did you hide the Farnsworth under your hat?”

“I wasn’t hiding it. It was – strategic placement. How long are you going to be in there?”

“Honestly, I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry. I’m the one who has a job to get to.”

Jack sighs. “Because some of us really need the facilities first thing in the morning. What did Charlie want, anyway? At this ungodly hour, he’s the only one who’d be calling, short of an emergency.”

“We only have today to work this case,” Rebecca says, setting aside her makeup in favor of her hair pins. “He wanted to divert us to Calcutta now and have us help Gus see a man about a camera, but frankly, I think we’re close enough to this thing that it’s worth pursuing a little longer.”

“Girls turning into glass statues or girls turning into old ladies who die of silver nitrate poisoning a couple days later – I can’t decide which would be more fun. Then again, hopefully we can nip this one in the bud before it turns into a decade-long chase.”

“One would certainly hope. I think one of those at a time is quite enough to be getting on with.” For a moment, she’s tempted to stretch out pinning her hair up as long as she possibly can, just because it’s annoying Jack so much – but then, she’s the one who’s expected to be somewhere in an hour and a half, and they’re going to have to find breakfast. So she makes her usual quick work of the job and heads out, only to find that Jack hasn’t even bothered getting dressed while she was in there.

“If you make me late for this job, so help me, I will Tesla you sterile.”

Jack rolls his eyes as he brushes past Rebecca and into the bathroom. “Jeez, Becks, relax. It’s not like it’s your real job or anything.”

***

Splitting up their equipment is as much about the risks involved in what they’re doing as anything else, when they split up on a case like this. This time around, Jack’s taking the Farnsworth because he’ll be better able to answer it if someone calls them, and he’s leaving Becks with the Tesla; it’s not like anyone will know it’s in her handbag until she pulls it out, and besides, she’s in the office with their current top suspect. Given that, she’ll probably need it well before he does.

Elizabeth Raitt – a true ‘Mrs. Jonah’ if ever Jack’s met one – is more than happy to let a member of the Secret Service pop in for a few moments. “If the president’s coming, it’s a good thing you’re making sure the neighborhood is safe,” she says, as Jack steps inside and removes his hat.

“Just part of the job, ma’am,” he says. He’s more than content to let people think what they will about the Secret Service poking its nose into things, though he has wondered before what people think when they’ve come and gone and no presidential visit follows, nor any news of counterfeit money.

“We voted for him, you know.” Mrs. Raitt stays on Jack’s tail into the living room; it’s only to be expected, this being her house and all, but that twist in his gut is starting all the same. “There was something about that Nixon I just didn’t trust.”

Jack smiles a little and tries to ignore the growing uneasiness. “Well, that makes two of us.” Nothing’s obviously out of place in the living room, so far as he can claim any expertise on the subject of modern homemaking (which isn’t much); his eyes land on a photo of the happy couple as he adds, “Has your husband brought home anything... unusual, lately?”

The photo, it turns out, was exactly the wrong thing to look at if Jack wanted to hold off the bad vibe. In it, Mrs. Raitt looks every inch the devoted housewife – and Jonah looks like he wants to be anywhere but in her company.

“Agent Secord,” Mrs. Raitt says, with the slightest strain in her voice, “does the president have reason to be concerned about my marriage?”

Jack shakes his head. “No. No, he doesn’t.”

But Jack’s starting to think he and Becks sure as hell have cause for concern.

***

Rebecca’s used a dictation machine before – in simpler times, when all she had to worry about was holding a summer job until her college classes started again. It’s been a long time since 1949; she’d like to think she can be forgiven for having a little trouble getting the hang of it again.

But that makes it no less annoying when the tape winds backward almost of its own accord.

“First day?”

Rebecca looks up to find one of the secretaries (Jack would probably call her a looker, if he were here to comment; she’s quite relieved he isn’t) smiling down at her. Since the other woman doesn’t seem at all upset, Rebecca smiles a little herself and says, “Yes. It’s been a while since I had to work one of these things.”

“Quite all right. Here, it looks like you got backed up--” The woman leans over to adjust the dictation machine, and Rebecca can’t help raising an eyebrow at her bracelet; it’s rather fancy, by publication office standards.

“That’s a lovely bracelet.”

“Thanks. It was a gift.”

“From whom?” Rebecca asks, but before she can press the matter further or the woman can answer, Jonah Raitt clears his throat.

“Ladies,” he says, “this is a place of business, not a sewing circle.”

The woman smiles, not as tightly as Rebecca would herself on the receiving end of that sort of statement. “Certainly, Mr. Raitt,” she says before returning to her desk, and that’s the end of the discussion.

Well, it is until lunch, anyway.

The woman – Roxanne Crane, Mr. Raitt’s current secretary – joins Rebecca; when they get to talking about something other than dictation machines, she proves to be brilliant. She’s got quite a bit of marketing savvy, and knows more about Where and When’s topics of choice than whoever it is Rebecca’s spent the morning transcribing for. After fifteen minutes, Rebecca can see that Roxanne is wasted as a secretary, and says so.

Roxanne smiles a little, glancing down at her bracelet. “I’m glad you think so. Mr. Raitt tried to persuade them to bring me on in a more editorial capacity, but no one else would hear of it. But one needs to work with what one has.”

“Indeed one does.” Rebecca considers that as she finishes her sandwich, trying to fit this view of the situation into what information they’ve got so far; it’s becoming increasingly clear she’ll have to compare notes with Jack before she can draw any conclusions.

“It’ll be that much easier when Meredith and Ruth come back from Los Angeles. But I think that’s enough gabbing for one lunch; if we don’t head back up soon, the boys will be terribly put out.”

By the time Rebecca recovers her composure enough to get up herself, Roxanne’s left the cafeteria – which is going to make it a bit difficult to find out why she thinks Meredith Rushman and Ruth Van Doren are even still alive.

***

The diner does a mean steak lunch, Jack will give them that, but even the best mashed potatoes he’s had in a long time and half a pack of smokes haven’t taken the edge off the knot in his stomach. He sure as hell hadn’t been expecting the bad vibe to come from Raitt’s house, never mind his wife, not when everything they’d found so far was pointing at him.

He really should know better than to go into these things with preconceived notions.

The Farnsworth buzzes as he’s cutting the last of the steak into manageable bites; he fishes it out of his pocket and opens it up while chewing one of those bites. “Mmm?”

“Honestly, Jack,” Phyllis says, “I didn’t need to see your lunch.”

“Sorry. It’s a good steak, is all. What’s up?”

“Charlie said Rebecca asked for anything else I could find on Mr. Raitt – is she with you?”

Jack shakes his head. “No, but I need to talk to her after I’m done with lunch.” He pulls his notebook and pen out of his shirt pocket and flips the notebook open. “Tell me what you found, Phyl, I’ll fill her in.”

“Well. The most interesting thing I pulled off the Lovelace by far is that Mr. Raitt took a deduction on a second residence last year – 15 Hoover Street. No idea what he’s using it for, but if it’s been going on long enough that he bought a house rather than use a hotel...”

“And his wife is... decidedly insecure about her marriage. And more invested in it than he is.”

Phyllis frowns. “Oh, dear. You don’t suppose he’s stepping out on her?”

“I’m not going to know until I get a chance to compare notes with Becks, but the problem is definitely marital in nature. Whether our buddy Jonah is aware of that or not is another story.” Jack sighs. “In any case, I should finish my lunch and try to grab Becks before this thing gets even more out of hand. By all means, call us if you find anything else.”

“I will. You two be careful.”

“I always am.” Jack closes the Farnsworth, and spends a few minutes staring at the remnants of his steak and the notes he took during the call. His appetite’s about shot, but he’s pretty sure it’d be a sin to let this steak go to waste, and it’s not as though he’s in a hurry on his partner’s account; Becks made it abundantly clear she can take care of herself a long time ago. Besides, if this is really marital in nature, they probably don’t have much to worry about until the office closes up shop for the day.

Seriously, why is it that the people who want no part of married life snap it up so quickly while he can’t even convince the woman he loves to look twice at him in more than a professional capacity? It’s ridiculous.

He shakes his head – no use worrying about it now, really – puts his notebook and the Farnsworth away, and sets to finishing his steak. The sooner they get this case put to bed, the better.

***

The proper operation of a dictation machine, Rebecca’s pleased to note, comes back to her more easily after lunch than it had first thing in the morning. After about half an hour, things are going smoothly enough that she feels comfortable watching her surroundings in her peripheral vision (she’d look around outright, if she could get away with it).

Most of the editorial staff doesn’t seem to give a whit about what’s going on, so long as they can smoke and drink in peace; no wonder the magazine’s never amounted to much. The secretaries are more than busy enough to make up for the men’s apparent lack of interest, and Rebecca’s more and more certain that if Where and When were in the ladies’ hands, it would be a much higher-quality periodical.

Roxanne’s nowhere to be seen. When Rebecca reaches a point where she can risk a glance, she notices Mr. Raitt’s office door is closed. A few minutes later – just when she’s found an opening to get up and try to figure out what they’re up to – Jack comes into the main office, looking unusually grim. She sighs, and pulls him into the hallway rather than have this conversation, whatever it’s going to be, in front of the unsuspecting staff.

“You found out anything useful?” he says; she can tell something’s eating at him, but she’s not sure what, as of yet.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think Mr. Raitt might be trying to improve the magazine. His current secretary certainly knows what’s going on a lot better than most of the editorial board seems to--”

“But he’s got to get past the editorial board,” Jack finishes. “Well, that’d explain his second house.”

“His second – I take it Phyllis called?”

“She did. And as for the house Mrs. Raitt knows about... she’s bad vibe city, Becks. I’m starting to think we came in with the wrong idea and this problem’s about their marriage, not his secretaries.”

Rebecca frowns. “Roxanne thinks the first two victims are in Los Angeles,” she says. “If it’s about Mr. Raitt’s secretaries, then it’s about the fact that he hasn’t explained to anyone what he’s doing, including his wife, which means all she knows is he’s sneaking off more nights than not.”

“And believe me, she’s a lot more invested in making the marriage work than he is. One of the two of them’s got the Artifact, and if we’re going to snag it, I think tonight’s our best chance, Calcutta or not.”

As Rebecca sees no reason to object to that, they take the time to hash out a plan; naturally, it’s almost immediately foiled when Rebecca steps back into the office and one of the editors all but shoves a stack of papers into her arms.

“Hey, sweetheart, I need these collated and filed by the end of business today,” he says. Rebecca’s too stunned to respond until after he says, “Thanks, honey!” and goes on his way.

“I beg your pardon,” she says, mainly for her own benefit; there’s not much point in really getting her ire up. And after all, if she doesn’t get it done, it’s not as though she has to worry about being fired.

She only hopes she’ll have another chance to speak to Roxanne privately before she leaves.

***

Jack’s part of the plan consists of hanging around outside the office, hoping no one busts him for loitering, smoking another pack of cigarettes and waiting for one of three people to leave (Raitt, Becks, or the secretary). It’s incredibly boring, and Phyllis doesn’t even buzz in to relieve the boredom; he’s very glad, by the time something finally happens, that they don’t have stakeouts more often.

As it happens, the person leaving is Raitt – almost certainly before close of business, but Jack already feels like he’s been sitting out here waiting for an eternity, so he’s not about to complain. As Raitt gets in his car, Jack keeps an eye on the door, and it pays off; within a couple minutes, a gorgeous blonde who he’s assuming is the secretary leaves the building and heads in another direction entirely.

Jack hopes Becks got a chance to warn her, and starts his car. If he doesn’t follow Raitt now, their chances to figure out what he knows away from his wife may just evaporate, and Jack can double back for Becks later (he’s always had a pretty good sense of direction; he’ll be able to find the office again).

It’s about fifteen minutes from the office to where Raitt’s headed; Jack makes a note of the club’s name and the parking lot, drives on for another block, and turns around at a gas station. The drive back goes slightly quicker (the place is well positioned to take advantage of the evening rush, he’ll give it that), but even with that, by the time he gets back to the office, Becks is standing on the stairs, looking impatient as all get-out.

“What took you so long?” she says as she gets in the car.

“I had to find out where we were going somehow. Besides, I could ask you the same thing.”

Becks sighs. “People assumed I actually do work here. I thought I might as well finish what I was working on, even if it’s not everything he was expecting.”

“You take this kind of thing way too seriously, you know. Did you get to talk to--”

“Roxanne? Yes. I’m not sure if she believed me, but she said she’d see about rescheduling their meeting. I don’t suppose Mr. Raitt was headed somewhere they would be able to talk?”

“Not as far as I could tell,” Jack says, lighting a cigarette as he pulls up to a stop light. “Anyway, if he’s as jumpy about talking this deal over in public as he seems to be, I doubt he would even if it were a co-ed establishment.”

“Mmm.” Becks doesn’t say anything else the rest of the way back to the club; Jack’s sure she’s planning something, but he has no idea what.

When they get back to the club, Jack gives Becks the Farnsworth and heads in. Whether she stays in the car is up to her, but at least for now, he’s on his own with this one. (He’s halfway to the door before he remembers he didn’t swap out for the Tesla, but that’s all right; he doubts he’s going to need it.)

He stubs out his cigarette on the way to the door and lights another as he steps inside, puts his lighter in his pocket, and takes off his hat – not without a fond memory for his CO in Korea, who’d probably be having conniptions that he didn’t go for the hat first. He takes in the atmosphere of the place for a while (hazy with smoke, drinks flowing freely, lots of pretty girls providing both) before he actively starts keeping an eye out for Raitt.

The man’s not hard to spot; he’s taken a chair along the far wall, drink (scotch on the rocks, if Jack doesn’t miss his guess) and magazine in hand. Jack wouldn’t have taken Raitt for the sort to read the stuff he works on every day in his free time, but maybe it’s one of those things he just can’t walk away from. Either that or he’s been taken in by Jackie Kennedy; can’t blame a guy for that.

“She is quite a fox, isn’t she?” he says, taking a seat near Raitt’s.

Raitt makes a noncommittal noise that may or may not be agreement before closing the magazine with a sigh. “She is. But – really, look at this. The most beautiful woman of our age and they’re doing their level best to make her look like last year’s news.”

“Oh?” Personally, Jack doesn’t think it’s that dire, at least judging from the magazine’s cover – but then, he hasn’t seen its content. He bites back the urge to point out that Jackie’s been news for nearly a decade now, if one wants to get technical, and waits for Raitt to explain himself.

“The board’s completely lost sight of the magazine’s vision. Five years ago, she would have looked like the work of art she is, but this? It’s a relic. This stuff was outdated in the ‘50s.”

“And just what would you be doing differently if you ran the zoo, so to speak?”

Raitt cracks a smile, though it doesn’t last long. “Give the people who actually know what’s going on in that office their due, for a start. And then? Keep the magazine competitive.”

That clinches it, in Jack’s mind; those are not the words of someone who makes a habit of glassing his secretaries. But before he can work out a graceful segue into the real matter at hand, someone comes up behind him and says, “Cigarette, sirs?”

“Actually, that sounds--” ‘Swell’ dies in Jack’s throat as he turns to face the bar girl, only to find Becks; she’s dolled herself up in one of the club’s spare getups and grabbed a cigarette box, the better to blend in, most likely.

Holy _shit_.

“Jack, you’re catching flies,” she says, “and I doubt you’ve exhausted your supply. Mr. Raitt?” Becks fishes her badge out of the cigarette box. “We need to have a word with your wife.”

Raitt narrows his eyes. “My wife?”

“We think she was involved in the disappearance of two of your secretaries.”

“But... Meredith and Ruth are in Los Angeles, they sent me a note--”

Jack finally manages to clear his throat. “They’re dead, Jonah.”

Much to his credit, Raitt goes pale.

***

Mr. Raitt takes his own car, leading the way to his second house (on the theory that Mrs. Raitt may still be lying in wait for Roxanne). Rebecca and Jack are following, and Rebecca’s beginning to wish she’d had time to change back into her own clothes before they headed out; Jack’s nearly run three different stop signs.

“Phyllis called again,” she says, hoping to keep him focused on the task at hand rather than her cleavage.

“Yeah? What’d she have to say?”

“Something you said when you talked to her got her researching Mrs. Raitt, and it seems these aren’t the first glass skeletons in her closet. She took issue with her father’s second wife, and while she was in college, her stepmother and stepsister both disappeared. Months later, her poor father found a pair of glass statues in the basement.”

“Her stepmother?” Jack says, after a long pause. “What is this, Cinderella in the Twilight Zone?”

“It might be exactly that. She said Betty turned up a version of the story in the library that predates the generally accepted original and sounds... disturbingly similar to what’s been going on here.”

“Jeez, the original gave me nightmares as it is. I mean, there’s wanting to look presentable and then there’s cutting pieces off your feet.”

Rebecca smirks; she can’t help it. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever need to keep you awake all night.”

Hoover Street seems close enough to the club that they could have walked; it would have been a long one, but they’ve hoofed it further in the name of the job. The house is dark, and Rebecca takes that as a good sign, at least as far as Roxanne is concerned, but as they pull up, Jack frowns.

“Another of your vibes?” Rebecca says. She’s still not entirely sure she believes in the things, but Jack’s gut instinct is a good one, whatever it is that’s driving it.

He nods. “She’s here, and I don’t think she’s going to be happy to see everyone.”

“Well, I do still have the Tesla. Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed qualms about taking down someone with a dangerous Artifact?”

“Qualms in general? No. Qualms about joining Raitt’s already-glassed secretaries, on the other hand, I’ve got in spades.”

“You’re just going to have to set them aside, I think.” It’s not that Rebecca doesn’t have similar worries herself, but letting them control the situation isn’t going to help them at all.

She lets Mr. Raitt get out of his car before she makes any move, just in case, and it proves to be a good move; it’s not long at all before Mr. Raitt says, “Beth? What are you doing in that ridiculous cape?”

Instead of answering, Mrs. Raitt lowers the hood to her cape – had Roxanne come here after all, she never would have seen Mrs. Raitt lurking in the shadows in that getup – and says, “What are you doing here, Jonah?”

“Beth, something terrible’s happened. Meredith and Ruth – they’re dead.”

Mrs. Raitt spares Rebecca the briefest of glances. “So you went right out and got yourself another whore.”

Rebecca’s suddenly very glad she’s got the Tesla in hand. She briefly considers getting back into the car, just in case, but decides against it; no matter how this ends, she’s not going down without a fight.

“I tried to make it so you would never have to worry,” Mrs. Raitt continues, her voice getting more and more desperate, “and so everything would always be okay. I took care of those girls, and you just – go and bring another one around?”

“Beth, it’s not what you think--”

“Maybe I should have been more obvious,” Mrs. Raitt says, before charging at her husband. Mr. Raitt’s too stunned to move, but before Rebecca can get a shot in, Jack knocks Mr. Raitt out of the way, only to get pinned to Mr. Raitt’s car for his trouble. It turns out to be a literal pinning; Mrs. Raitt backs off enough that Rebecca can see a knife lodged in Jack’s arm.

Jack’s arm is taking a decidedly glassy cast, and Mrs. Raitt is still holding onto the knife.

Rebecca shoves Mrs. Raitt out of the way, ignoring her protests that the knife has to stay in, and yanks it out of Jack’s arm (which, she’s relieved to see, returns to its normal appearance right away; she doesn’t want to think about how they’d get through this case if it had lasted).

“Jesus, Becks,” he says, rubbing the spot where Mrs. Raitt stabbed him. “Warn a man next time. That hurt.”

“Take it up with--” But before Rebecca can finish the sentence, someone – Mrs. Raitt, it turns out – grabs her hand and yanks her around.

Mrs. Raitt has the upper hand for a moment, since Rebecca wasn’t expecting the fight, but only for a moment; once she realized how dangerous the job was, Rebecca made a point of learning some basic self-defense. She takes some satisfaction in ensuring Mrs. Raitt hits the ground first, though she does pull Rebecca down with her. Neither of them wants to be the first to let go of the knife, and Rebecca’s also doing her best not to get stabbed herself.

But then there’s the sickening sound of a blade cutting skin, and Mrs. Raitt stops resisting. Rebecca stands up, confused – until she sees that Mrs. Raitt seems to have stabbed herself, if the now-glass hand around the knife is any indication.

“Can’t... bear to watch you take it,” she says, just barely loud enough for Rebecca to hear. In a way, she’s not at all surprised, given the lengths Mrs. Raitt has apparently gone to more than once to keep the men in her life completely focused on her.

“Jonah?”

Mr. Raitt kneels next to his wife on the sidewalk, who adds, “I wish you’d loved me more,” before the glass creeps so far up her chest that she’s likely unable to breathe.

“Oh, Beth.” Mr. Raitt looks like he’s going to be sick, and Rebecca can’t blame him. “Those poor girls... I wish you’d loved me _less_.”

When the glass finally stops spreading, Jack leans in and pulls the knife out of Mrs. Raitt’s hand. “Well. That was – something else,” he says, before moving to his car’s trunk for the neutralizer canister.

“Indeed it was.” Rebecca sighs. “Mr. Raitt – I don’t suppose I could prevail upon your bathroom and change clothes?”

***

While Raitt’s letting Becks in the house (and there’s a part of Jack that’s a little disappointed she’s not planning to keep the club getup, not that he’ll ever tell her that), Jack takes advantage of the empty street to get the knife in the neutralizer can. It sparks like hell when he drops it in – no surprise there.

At least this one didn’t turn into the never-ending chase sequence that Man Ray’s camera has been. He wonders how Gus is doing, but he can’t feel too guilty about them begging off Calcutta; bagging one Artifact is better than losing both.

Raitt comes back first, and by that point, something’s hit Jack (not as hard as a vibe, but still).

“You’re probably going to want to get the hell out of Dodge.”

Raitt frowns. “Why?”

“Two of your secretaries turn up dead, and now your wife? You’re going to be the natural suspect.”

“But – can’t you tell the authorities it was Beth?”

Jack frowns. “We can try, but... you can imagine how hard this is going to be to explain in the first place. At the very least, you might want to make some kind of backup plan.”

“All right, but I’m not even sure where I’d go.”

“Saint Louis,” Jack says, and that one does feel like a vibe. “Saint Louis would do right by you. Trust me on that one.”

Raitt nods, but before either of them can say anything else, Becks emerges from the house, back in her own clothes (funny thing, Jack doesn’t mind that as much as he’d thought he would when she went to change).

“Shall we?” she says, and with that they’re making their goodbyes and on their way back to the hotel, by way of the club so Becks can drop off the borrowed dress.

“I was a little surprised,” Jack says, when she gets back in the car, “that you didn’t try to take the knife out of Mrs. Jonah before it was done.”

Becks shrugs. “She said she’d rather go like that than see us take it from her. And – well. It’s sort of like having to bronze someone, I suppose. She had problems, and I don’t know that she could have been persuaded to get help for them. Come to that, I was surprised you didn’t step in.”

“Had a vibe.”

“Of course you did.”

“Oh, come on, Becks, you always say that!”

They fall into a familiar pattern the rest of the way back to the hotel, arguing over whether Becks should know that Jack’s on to something after five years of working with him or he’s just making the whole thing up. The first four or five times they had it, it was a real argument, too tense for anyone’s good; after all this time, it’s a bit more light-hearted.

“I mean, really,” Jack says, as he unlocks the door to their hotel room, “I don’t think you doubt I have the vibes at all so much as you just hate it when I turn out to be right.”

“What I do doubt is that your ‘lucky lighter’ is really half as lucky as you claim it is.”

“You’re dodging the point, Becks.”

“And what if I am?” she says, one eyebrow raised. “You certainly do it often enough.”

Jack doesn’t have a good answer to that – but he does have a vibe, and this case has him of a mind to act on it, so he closes the space between them and kisses Becks like he wanted to the first time they crossed paths.

It’s a few seconds before she kisses back, and far too short a time after that when she pushes him away. “Jack, what on earth are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done a long time ago,” he says, meaning every word of it.

The second time he kisses her, she doesn’t pull back; the third time, she starts it.


	2. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paralleling "Burnout": Rebecca waits for a chance to put Jack's last case to bed, but it never truly comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (THIS IS THE SAD BIT. The Peteless!'verse is a fundamentally unhappier place than the canon 'verse; add to that MacPherson running the Warehouse show and, well, things get a little messy.)

When three-quarters of a local gang is burned to death not long after a mysterious explosion at the nearby police station, Rebecca sits up and takes notice.

When a woman claims her ex-husband went berserk on her for no apparent reason, kept coming at her despite multiple gunshots to the chest and didn’t collapse until a strange silver thing detached from his back and disappeared into the fallen leaves, Rebecca digs out the information Jack found on the Spine of the Saracen all that time ago and braces herself for a knock on her door.

A week and twelve more dead bodies (three food critics, most of a private practice and a couple of house painters who were apparently running a shady business) later, she’s getting impatient. For all Mrs. Frederic appearing in the produce section during her weekly grocery trip gives her a start, it doesn’t really surprise her.

“Rebecca,” Mrs. Frederic says. “Good to see you again.”

“You as well, I suppose.” Rebecca ties off her bag of asparagus. “You’re here about the electrocutions, aren’t you.”

She doesn’t have to ask, so it isn’t exactly a question, and she’s not surprised when Mrs. Frederic nods. “I suspect it’s the same Artifact Agent Secord was chasing when he disappeared.”

“As do I, from everything I’ve heard, but – I have a question for you. What kind of operation are you running that you had to come out here and look into the matter yourself?” It isn’t a question Rebecca would have dared ask fifty years ago. But times change, and she’s been trying to find Jack or, failing that, find closure for nearly that long. Just because she’s built her own life doesn’t mean she has to like that there’s no official Warehouse presence looking into the case.

Mrs. Frederic raises an eyebrow. “I intend to find out.”


End file.
